Sports

Colorado State football offense starting to add up

Rams averaging 40 points, 500-plus yards in past five games

By Mike Brohard

Loveland Reporter Herald

Posted:
11/08/2013 08:36:34 PM MST

Click photo to enlarge

Colorado State quarterback Garrett Grayson, left, struggles to stay in-bounds as he runs past Boise State linebacker Tanner Vallejo in the fourth quarter of Boise State's 42-30 victory in an NCAA college football game in Fort Collins, Colo., Saturday, Nov. 2, 2013.

Really, 109 plays run and 626 yards of total offense? But when Jim McElwain watched the film, something else amazed him about how well the Colorado State offense performed in the loss to Boise State.

"Yet, we should have had 850 (yards). Look at the film," the CSU coach said.

He was serious, and his players agreed.

"There's things we noticed right off the bat in the first three plays that we could have done more to get more yards in those plays," quarterback Garrett Grayson said. "If you notice the first three plays you watch on film, it makes you think the rest of the time you see a missed play and you see it on the next play, and you say, 'dang, we could have had four more yards here.'"

A few more points, too, which in the end, was what they really needed in the 42-30 loss. But the fact remains the Rams are clicking on offense as of late, and it's coming just in time.

After averaging just 23.5 points and 298.3 yards per game the first four contests, the Rams are up to 40.6 and 516.2 in the past five. Coincidentally, the Rams have also won three of those games to move them to 4-5 on the season (2-2 in the Mountain West) after starting 1-3.

It is the best five-week run of scoring for the program since the middle of the 1997 season, when the Rams had a stretch of scoring 221 points.

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It's easy to see why. All three of Grayson's career 300-yard games have come in the current stretch, including setting the school's total offense mark with 416 yards last week. The running game has produced five 200-plus-yard performances on the season, four in the past five weeks.

Naturally, confidence is running high.

"You know, I think so. What you hope that really occurs to strive for all those little things you talk about," McElwain said. "When you talk about the difference being that much, and it really is. There's a lot of examples if we just strained a little bit more, we may have broken a couple of bigger runs. There's some of that. But definitely, we've come a ways offensively."

Talk about Grayson's improved play or the emergence of Kapri Bibbs all you want, but tight end Kivon Cartwright thinks the reason for improvement is rather basic.

"We executed, and we've been getting better every practice, every game, so we've just got to continue sticking to what got us to improve and we'll keep rolling," Cartwright said. "That just goes to the film study and the game plan. We just came out and executed. I'm not going to say it was easy, but when everybody does their job and playmakers make plays, it goes a lot smoother."

It has most certainly been a process. The Rams have scored more than 50 points twice in the current stretch after having surpassed 40 just once in McElwain's first 16 games as coach.

The system was new, as was the blocking scheme. Three quarterbacks had to play last year due to injury, and new pieces were inserted the past two years.

"It takes some time when you're trying to learn things," Grayson said. "Even though it is year two, we've had a year and a half, almost two years to get used to this offense, it's going to take time. I think right now is the time it's really starting to click for us. Even the end of last year we came off a high note winning three of the five and putting up good numbers, I think now it's finally showing what we can do as a unit."

The key for all is to keep the chains moving, the points adding up. With the way the Rams have been playing on offense lately, they don't see any reason why they should slow down now.

"With the confidence and (offensive coordinator Dave) Baldwin, we're putting together a great game plan, week in and week out," Cartwright said. "I think we can continue rolling if everybody executes. If they come with that mindset, we can keep rolling."

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